1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns wireless communications, and more specifically, to a method of reporting location information alongside other information, in a wireless communication system, and a method of supporting the same.
2. Related Art
3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) long term evolution (LTE) which is improvement of a universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) is introduced as 3GPP release 8. The 3GPP LTE uses orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) in a downlink and uses single carrier-frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) in an uplink. Multiple input multiple output (MIMO) having maximum four antennas are adopted. In recent years, 3GPP LTE-advanced (LTE-A) which is an evolution of the 3GPP LTE has been discussed.
MDT (minimization of driving tests) means that service providers test user equipments instead of vehicles in order for coverage optimization. Coverage varies depending on the location of the base station, arrangement of surrounding buildings, and users' use environments. Accordingly, a service provider periodically needs to do driving tests and requires bunch of costs and resources. MDT is that a service provider measures coverage using a user equipment.
MDT may be divided into logged MDT and immediate MDT. According to logged MDT, a user equipment delivers a logged measurement after performing MDT measurement to a network at a specific time. Immediate MDT lets a user equipment transfer a measurement to a network when reporting conditions are met after MDT measurement is carried out. Logged MDT conducts an MDT measurement in an RRC idle mode while immediate MDT does in an RRC connected mode.
A service provider may prepare for a coverage map that indicates a service's quality distribution and whether a service is available over his/her entire service area by compiling the MDT measurements received from several user equipments and may utilize the coverage map for network operation and optimization. For example, when reported a coverage issue regarding a specific region from a user equipment, a service provider may expand coverage of the corresponding local cell by increasing transmit power of the base station providing services to the corresponding area.
In case a user equipment that has performed an MDT measurement may be available for reporting with the user equipment's location information upon measurement, the user equipment may send the location information together with the measurement result to a network. The user equipment may conduct a positioning procedure in order to obtain the location information while doing MDT measurement. Meanwhile, the user equipment may consume much power while fulfilling the positioning procedure. In comparison, usefulness of the location information reported alongside the measurement result is not always high. Accordingly, a need exists for a reporting method that enables the optimization between reducing the user equipment's power consumption and reporting location information that is critical for operating a network.